


Diamonds in the Rough

by FireSoul



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain Canary Secret Santa 2019, DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV) Season 1, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21941593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: It's Christmas time at The Refuge, and after being left here by a man who may or may not be his older self Leonard really wants nothing to do with it.That's fine, Mary Xavier has an idea for an alternative.
Relationships: Sara Lance/Leonard Snart
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38





	Diamonds in the Rough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/gifts).



Leonard doesn’t understand a single thing about this place.

This orphanage, foster home, or whatever the hell it is. He was told it’s a refuge, but a refuge for _what_ he isn’t clear on. Nor is he clear on why the hell he’s here.

A few weeks ago he was in a footrace trying to get away from the cops, and the next thing he knew some woman in a black leather trench coat attacked him. Of course that isn’t even the strangest part. No, some other woman in a white leather trench coat then came out of nowhere and attacked the first woman, and he ran right into a blinding light and woke up on a space ship with some girl named Sara only two years younger than him, and Mick. The three of them - along with three babies - were brought here by some people his more imaginative side is convinced are _them_ from the future and left to help this woman Mary Xavier tend to her brood of orphans.

Mary is a mystery all her own, one which he can’t seem to crack. She seems to know everything, and she’ll tell nothing. Yet, a few days ago, she pulled him aside and informed him that Sara shares her birthday with Christmas.

“Just in case that interests you.” She’d said, a smartass gleam in her eye that only an old woman can pull off. He’d shrugged off the information at first, he didn’t care, but wherever this refuge is it isn’t July here, and Christmas is evidently drawing closer.

Sara, undoubtedly, helps the most with taking care of the kids out of the three of them. He has seen her up early with babies, late with nightmares, and she wipes at least one sticky face after every mealtime. Now that Christmas is coming the kids are more rambunctious than usual, and Sara is almost always corralling them into crafts or Santa wish lists. He’s sure this is what it’s like for her every year. Maybe not so many kids involved, but ginger bread houses and everyone writing lists instead of balloons and a cake just for her. The kids are all about baking cookies and decorating the house with paper snowflakes and garland. No streamers or cards for their newest – and by far most attentive – babysitter.

So here he is, at two in the morning on Christmas day, in the house’s kitchen and questioning all of his life’s choices.

Once he decided that Sara did, in fact, deserve for _someone_ to do _something_ for her birthday Mary convinced him to think of something to get for her. He couldn’t understand why, as there is literally NOTHING beyond this place. Nothing but a dense fog that leads nowhere except the other side of the property, like a wormhole.

He’s still trying to figure that out.

Yet somehow she managed to get Santa presents for the children, and once he realized that, well, he felt like not asking her to get him something to give to Sara was just a waste.

Once everything is set up in the kitchen he decides it’s now or never. He heads up the stairs to the top floor of the house. There are only three rooms up here; and clearly only one was actually designed as a bedroom. That one belongs the Mary. The other two are more small storage rooms with beds set up in them; one with a set of bunks for himself and Mick, and the other with a single bed for Sara. She sleeps with her door cracked open, far more trusting than he is.

He pokes the door open, relieved to find that she is alone. It isn’t unusual for one of the kids to crawl into bed with her, and she never seems to have the heart to kick them out. But it seems Christmas Eve and the promise of Santa Clause has managed to keep all the rugrats contained to their own rooms.

“Sara.” He whispers, loudly, and she starts awake with a jolt.

“Hm?” She hums, sitting up and blinking blearily at him. “What? Leonard? What’s going on?”

He cocks his head towards the hall, “Come on.”

“What?” She asks again, “What time is it?”

“A little after two.” He answers, “Follow me.”

She does. She grumbles the whole way about how this better be good, but she follows.

“Leonard what is going on?” She quietly demands as they slink down the staircase, avoiding every creaky floorboard they know of as so to keep from waking the kids.

He remains quiet the whole way to the ground floor, and then through the dining room and into the kitchen.

She follows him over to the counter, stopping on one side as he goes around to the other. He has a small cake set out; he’d used the smallest pan he could find. It’s covered rather messily in chocolate frosting with _Happy Birthday Sara_ spelt out sloppily, not to mention tightly, on the face in red icing. He’d managed to find an entire package of birthday candles, so he puts four into the cake and then picks up the lighter.

Finally, before he lights the first candle, he looks up for Sara’s expression.

She has her eyebrows furrowed and her arms crossed, her puzzled gaze locked on the cake like she has never seen one before in her life.

Knowing what he does about her life before this place, he doubts that’s the case.

“Why?” She finally asks, upon realizing he’s staring at her.

He shrugs and starts lighting the candles.

“Those kids aren’t going to acknowledge it.” He says, and he flicks his eyes up to meet hers between lighting two of the candles. “Besides, you ever been to prison?”

She shakes her head, and he smirks; of course she hasn’t.

“When you’re in prison, if you ignore things like your birthday, things that you would be celebrating if you were on the outside; you run the risk of forgetting what the outside is like.” He explains, and with the last candle lit he puts down the lighter and meets her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but the last place I want to risk that in is this place.”

She holds his gaze a minute, a long minute, and then she blows out the four candles.

He claps, mostly out of humoring, and then picks up the knife to cut the cake.

“I tried to find some beer.” He says apologetically as she plucks a candle from the cake and pops the bottom into her mouth. “But I’m convinced alcohol is the one thing Mary doesn’t have anywhere in this place.”  
“It’s fine.”

They eat in relative silence, Sara commenting that the cake is actually good and he is definitely helping the next time the kids beg to make cookies. He promises to deny he even knows how to use an oven, she threatens she’ll offer to teach him. He drops the issue after that, and they return to quietly picking at their plates.

“I got you something too.” He finally says, reaching into his pocket.

“How?” She snorts, “You rob Mary?”

He pauses with his hand in his pocket, and smirks.

“Tried.” He admits, “Failed. But once I realized she had presents for the kids I asked her if she could get her hands on something for us.”

She raises an eyebrow at that, “Us?”

He rolls his eyes. “You, me, and Mick.” He clarifies, and he pulls out a small necklace threaded through a piece of cardboard.

It’s a simply necklace. A black chain with a dull, diamond shaped pendant.

“She wouldn’t tell me where she got these.” He says as he hands it to her. “But the three of them are connected. No matter where or… when… we are, if we touch these, it’ll light up the other two.”

She runs her thumb over the pendant, a small and almost wondrous smile on her face. That look on her face, a small part of him starts to wish he hadn’t asked for a necklace for Mick too. He wishes this could be theirs and only theirs, but they aren’t there.

They aren’t _that._

Even if they were, which they’re not, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Mick is here too and he has to be pragmatic, thorough; he has to look out for all of them.

Judging by the teasing gleam in Sara’s eyes when she looks up, she knows all these things as well as he does.

“So what?” She asks, “Does this mean I’m a part of your and Mick’s little broody bunch?”

Hm, cute.

“It means I don’t hate you.” He says, “And I don’t know what’ll happen if those people with the spaceship ever some back. So, in the event we’re separated, I would like for us all to have a way of at least knowing each other is alive.”

Her face grows more serious when he mentions the people who brought them here. He knows she suspects the same as he does, that blonde woman had been the spitting image if her, just minus the bangs and youthful attitude. Not to mention the necklaces functioning “no matter when”.

Even so, the whole idea of the people being their future selves is impossible, and if there is one thing he doesn’t trust it’s the impossible.

With a decisive intake of breath Sara unravels the black chain and clasps it around her neck. Once that’s done she pulls her hair out of the chain and lets it fall back into place around her shoulders. She then, with her eyes darting down to her new accessory, reaches up and lays her fingers over the pendant.

He feels the faint twinge of warmth on his chest instantly, and looks down to see a soft glow of orange shining underneath his sleep shirt. He pulls his necklace out, and when he does he can see Sara’s black diamond turn identically orange under her fingertips.

There’s an understanding between them, right here and now. They’re in this together.


End file.
